A few days ago the director’s new film was released Makoto Shinkai, Suzume no Tojimari (Suzume’s Door-Locking), in US theaters. The acclaimed director was present on North American lands, so a wide variety of media outlets took the opportunity to interview him regarding his inspiration and other details of interest regarding the film.

However, the one that stood out was the one carried out by the media Loopersince they questioned the director regarding the fact that the original idea of ​​the film involved a romance between two girls.

• I read that her initial intention was for “Suzume no Tojimari” to be a story regarding two women, but that the producers told her to change one of the romantic leads to a man. Will you continue to try to tell more direct LGBTQ+ stories in the future?
• I’m very impressed that you know that, because I think I’ve only talked regarding it in interviews in Japan. At first, I wanted to make this story into a movie regarding the journey of Suzume and another girl. The reason I wanted to go in that direction in the first place is because I personally felt a little tired of telling the traditional romance story. On “Your Name” I did everything I might in terms of “boy meets girl” and “will meet, won’t meet”. That element of romance is very close to the masses, and that’s why it was a theme that resonated with the general public.
• Personally, since I’ve done that so many times, I pivoted. I wanted to turn to a more sorority type of romance story, but I had to change it because my producer told me, “You may be tired of these romance stories, but your audience loves them.” So in order not to be too romantic, I decided that her main interest would be a chair.
• As for the LGBTQ comment, it’s not something I’m actively trying to write or not write or [sea] a conscious decision. But with this movie, Suzume as the lead, it works. But I think it would also work if he had been a boy or if he had been non-binary. It is not necessarily the masculine/feminine context; it is regarding a human being who overcomes something. In my future films I also want to focus on that human story instead of making too many comments regarding gender or sex.

The fact that Makoto Shinkai I wanted this movie to star two girls was not something the interviewer made up. Reviewing some of the interviews conducted by the Japanese media, we can confirm that the director mentioned it in an interview for the media PEN ONLINE:

• (Omission) In the video regarding the first production press conference, I made no secret that there was some influence from Hayao Miyazaki’s “Majo no Takkyuubin (Kiki’s Delivery Service)”, but that movie didn’t age well as a story regarding a girl’s emotional development, did it? don’t you think? Kiki meets many people in the training process to be a witch, including Ursula and Osono. It’s probably been pointed out by several people already, but Kiki knows women who embody what might be her future.
• Although the setting, the taste and the content of the story are completely different from those of “Majo no Takkyuubin“, I wanted “Suzume no Tojimari” to also be a story regarding Suzume’s encounters with other women. I tried to keep the people I met in each place as work-oriented as possible, so I came up with characters I had never drawn before, like a girl helping out at her family’s guest house, or the mother of a snack bar. They act as catalysts for Suzume’s contact with unknown cultures.

Fuente: Looper

(c)2022 “Suzume no Toshimi” Production Committee